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COUNSELOR'S CORNER: After all I've done for you…

Not all of a counselor’s insights about human behavior are discovered in therapy sessions.

Sometimes we learn a lot just from watching people live their lives.

Such as the woman who was convinced that her husband had put her through college.

“He always told me he would get alimony if I ever left him,” she said, “because he was the one who had paid for my education.”

The woman said she had never even threatened to leave her husband, but his words made her feel guilty and obligated to him.

Several years later, however, the couple did divorce. No alimony was involved. Even so, the woman said, she carried with her a little bit of that guilt for having left her husband after all he had done for her.

And then one day, many years later, she was thinking back over her college years — the jobs she had held, the financial aid she’d received, the loans she took out and repaid for years after the marriage had ended.

And she came to an amazing realization.

He husband had not put her through college at all!

“What was I thinking?” she said.

The “After All I’ve Done for You” tactic had clouded her thinking.

We typically say, “After All I’ve Done for You,” when we want to make someone do something they don’t want to do, or to keep them from doing something we’re afraid they’ll do, or to stop them from doing something they’re already doing.

And it can be deadly effective.

I have had clients who delayed leaving physically dangerous partners because they wanted to repay some real or imagined debt to them first.

What better way to keep someone under control than to convince them their debt is too great ever to be repaid?

In a lot of cases, there isn’t really much difference between the contributions of the debtor and the accuser.

The main difference has to do with which of them decides to use the “After All I’ve Done for You” weapon.

Domestic partners typically do a lot for each other. Parents typically do a lot for their children. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

When a parent plays the “After All I’ve Done for You” card with their child, it’s particularly insidious, because they are not on an even playing field.

Children, after all, start out little and helpless. In an unhealthy relationship, they will rack up a lot of debt. But in a healthy relationship, caring for a child is its own reward.

In the case of our unhappy couple, each of them actually made substantial contributions to each other’s well-being — not always the same contributions, but equal enough that the possibility of alimony didn’t occur to any of their attorneys.

But that wasn’t enough evidence to rid our friend of the guilt she carried away with her.

If you are unfortunate enough to have someone in your life reminding you of all they’ve done for you, there is a way of getting free from this kind of guilt.

Next time the topic comes up, I want you to try this.

Imagine the tables are turned. Think of all you have done for that other person over the years. Make yourself a list. Then imagine what you would be saying to your accuser if you were as fond of the “After All I’ve Done for You” weapon as they are.

You’ll probably end up realizing the main difference is not who racks up the biggest debt, but who lays on the biggest guilt trip.

Will you still feel guilty?

Maybe a little. At least for a while.

Hopefully not enough to get in your way.

Julia Cochran is a licensed professional counselor in Rincon. She can be reached at 912-772-3072 or by email at JCochranPhD@GileadCounseling.com.